writing Self-Publishing, Self-Marketing, and the Self
Entry posted by Thorn Wilde
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There is this overwhelmingly popular opinion that self-publishing, to some degree, isn't valid. It's what we do here on GA, of course, and putting out your work for free on the Internet for people to see seems to be acceptable and sometimes commended, but as soon as an author tries to make money from self-publishing their work—either by setting up a Patreon and asking for donations, or by publishing their work using services like Lulu and Amazon KDP and thus circumventing the traditional publishing process—a lot of people, and in particular other writers, become sceptical, sometimes bordering on hostile. There's this idea that people who self-publish just aren't good enough to be published by a major publishing house and, as such, don't deserve to get paid for the time and effort they put into writing.
But is it really about who's good enough? And who decides? Some arbitrary authority, like editors, agents, and publishing houses who are out to make money off of what you write? Is the question whether your work is good, or whether they think it will sell? How much bias and prejudice goes into that evaluation? I think a lot of publishers steer clear of queer fiction, thinking it won't sell as well, and a lot of what you do find published wasn't even written by queer authors. It's getting better, sure, but I still believe the cards to be stacked against us.
Yesterday, an event called PitMad took place on Twitter. This is an event that happens four times a year, where authors scream into the void. You write a pitch for your book to fit into one tweet, tag it with #pitmad as well as additional relevant tags for genre and demographic, and wait for editors and agents to like your tweet. Then you send your manuscript to them, and by liking your tweet they have pledged to read it. This rarely leads anywhere, of course. As with everything else on the Internet, it's a lottery. Was your tweet visible enough? Where did Twitter's algorithm place you when they were scrolling through tweets? And it's hard to market yourself, to try and make your book sound interesting in less than 280 characters.
And without an agent, you're basically fucked. You don't get JK Rowling stories anymore. You can't just send your manuscript to a publisher. They won't even look at it. So there are more steps, more middlemen, more people who have to think your book is worthy of a chance, who have to think they can make money from it, before it's even seen by someone who can decide whether it deserves to be published. The market is oversaturated. It's harder than it used to be.
There are also indie publishers, but a lot of them are sketchy. I've heard stories from authors who were asked to pay to submit their manuscript, pay for their ISBN, which is not how publishing is done. Most serious indie publishers close their submissions periodically because they get so many.
At least by self-publishing, you get it out there, you have the chance to make a little bit of money from it. Some self-published authors have later been picked up by major publishers or literary agents. Some have managed to make a modest living through self-publishing. And yeah, when anyone can do it, you end up with a lot of bad stuff. That's not to be denied. But that's no reason to discount the whole thing.
I wonder if a lot of writers believe they're simply not good enough. Most writers of online fiction never even try to get something published, indie, self or otherwise. Maybe that's where the hostility towards or dismissal of self-publishing authors comes from. Why should they do it when I don't? And of course, self-publishing comes with a necessity for self-marketing, which can easily be seen as narcissistic.
I'm taking the plunge. I'm self-publishing a book of twenty-four of my short stories. All of those stories are available to read here on GA, though I have polished, edited and, in some cases, rewritten parts of them. I have chosen to believe that I'm good enough. That my writing is good enough. And I'll be pushing my book hard on Twitter. I've been writing all my life and I'm taking this into my own hands. It won't make me rich. It may not really sell at all. And posting about it may not make me any friends. But I'm doing it anyway. It will be available on Kindle and as paperback through Amazon KDP, and also as an eBook through Draft2Digital, to be released on Apple Books and Barnes & Noble, among others. It will be out on the 30th of September. I choose to think I can do this.
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